The first time I won a Qantas Media Award, I kissed my editor. To be frank, the winning column doesn't really rank amongst my best work, but it represented an early exploration of the internet in the mainstream media, and I was well pleased. It felt good to be inside the tent.

I felt a similar sort of satisfaction on Friday, when I won the first Qantas Media Award to be given for the best blog: this one, Hard News. I might be biased, but I thought the introduction of internet categories to the Qantases this year added real interest to an event that has always been about "old" media.

It was nice to see the Herald online team (best news website) gain recognition, and I was particularly pleased to see our friends at Spare Room pick up two prizes. With Scoop making finalist in the two news categories, it was also a banner evening for the Scoop Media sales network, of which both ourselves and Spare Room are part. We await your call …

I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the internet categories weren't tucked away in a ghetto at the beginning of the ceremony, but spread through the schedule, to emphasise their equal merit with the print awards; and also really impressed with Paul Reynolds' speech about the new media evolution. (I offered to run Paul's speech here, but discovered, to my surprise, that he'd reeled it off without benefit of notes). So, yes, it felt like something happened on Friday in Wellington.

The awards evening itself began in jolly fashion with Simon Collins and friends storming the stage with their "Save the Subs" banner in protest at APN's plans to consolidate and outsource much of its print- sub-editing and end, for me, when I set off to find my friends in town and visit a bar or two. We wound up, almost inevitably, at Mighty Mighty, where we ran into Mikee Tucker from Loop, who was in the midst of 48 Hour film-making.

Staying with the blog media angle, here's an important press release. Thanks to David Haywood for the legwork, Tze Ming for the idea and everyone else for participating:

PRESS RELEASE: NEW ZEALAND BLOGGERS OFFER SUPPORT FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN FIJI

New Zealand bloggers from across the political spectrum are offering material support for Fijian blogs in the face of violence and censorship by the country's military regime. They are also calling on the New Zealand government to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the regime's acts of violence and censorship against this nonviolent, grassroots blogging movement.

The Fijian military regime has declared anonymous pro-democracy bloggers to be a "threat to national security", and have attempted to block Fijian access to common hosting sites such as www.blogspot.com. Suspected blogger, Ulaiasi Taoi, was recently subjected to beatings, verbal abuse, and humiliation during a 24-hour questioning, according to The Fiji Times and Fijian news sites. The military regime now claims to have identified 20 more people responsible for pro-democracy blogs who will also be threatened with "questioning".

In support of the right to freedom of expression, a group of New Zealand bloggers are now offering access to their own websites for Fijian residents. The group is composed of prominent New Zealand bloggers from across the political spectrum, including writers of Just Left, Kiwiblog, No Right Turn, NZBC, Public Address, and Spanblather. They have agreed to publish guest articles by Fijian bloggers, and where possible will provide hosting on their servers for Fijian blogs.

The group is also calling upon other members of the New Zealand online community with an interest of freedom of speech (such as Scoop, nzherald.co.nz, and Stuff) to make a similar offer of material support for Fijian bloggers.

Blogs are one of the few news sources outside of the control of the military regime in Fiji, representing a vital channel of uncensored information for both Fijians and the international community.

Any Fijian bloggers wishing to make use of this offer should make contact through one of the above-listed websites.

There's some background courtesy of No Right Turn here and here. I hope we'll have material for you this week. It's important.

Also, Paul Reynolds has some fascinating stuff from his recent travels on his blog.

I might be biased, but I thought the introduction of internet categories to the Qantases this year added real interest to an event that has always been about "old" media.

*ahem* Indeed, and congratulations.

But,,, I do hope we're going to see a few less columns huffing and puffing about what a pack of lying, psychotic douche bags bloggers are. Yes, there's plenty of nut bags in the blogisphere but one might think some sections of the old media (and I'll not harsh the buzz by naming names), really need to clean up their own act before getting Miss Manners on anyone else's arse.

The Herald website's report on Simon Collins' protest was so priceless I had to save it and share:

Media protest at Qantas Awards

May 19, 2007By Simon Collins

Journalists protesting about contracting-out plans at newspapers and magazines owned by APN took to the stage at the Qantas Media Awards in Wellington last night.

Union delegate Simon Collins, winner of the investigative reporting award, was joined by four colleagues, unfurling a banner and calling for the Herald publisher to halt its outsourcing of subediting jobs to Australian company PageMasters.

The byline has now been changed to NZPA. I don't know if the original attribution was an error, but I just love the idea of a one-man reporter, protester and award-winner all included in a two sentence story!

But,,, I do hope we're going to see a few less columns huffing and puffing about what a pack of lying, psychotic douche bags bloggers are. Yes, there's plenty of nut bags in the blogisphere but one might think some sections of the old media (and I'll not harsh the buzz by naming names), really need to clean up their own act before getting Miss Manners on anyone else's arse.

I think that's why I'm so pleased about Friday night: it really felt that we were moving past that attitude. And as Don indicates, there were people on the online side of the major news operations who felt some vindication too.

Sorry to be so mean-spirited, though I'm sure Russell can more than handle it - but - does anyone still believe the Qantas media awards mean anything? Doesn't it always seem like they share them out about evenly around all the companies, and if someone misses out they make up for it the next year?

In fact, is there anyone who's been working in journalism for more than about four years who HASN'T won a Qantas?

Some of the harshest critics of the Qantas Media Awards are the very people who've just stuffed a hunk of perspex in their handbags -- and what's an award show without some luxurious angst about how utterly meaningless it all is?

But.. if Public Address Radio is up for something at the RBA NZ Radio Awards next year, it will take Russell and a tazer capable of bringing down an elephant to keep moi away from the rubber chicken and orgiastic self-congratulation. :)

excellent scoop on the androidss video russell. I remeber the show but have no idea who the presenter is. does that sound like a different version of the song to you? I'll have to dig out my copy and compare.

Che has correctly pointed out that the spiky headed multi-substance fueled louts that pogoed like there was no tomorrow have now become the establishment tut tutting at the inexplicable activities of youth ( its always someone else's kids)For me, the attraction of the hard news days was in the irreverence to the msm conventions and the unexamined angles and usually accurate alternative information sources.There will always be an angle represented by blogs that will be ahead of all msm trends because we don't have to kowtow to the owners wishes. The world is a richer and better informed place because of it.Rock on Russ

wrong because hard news had ever-so-slowly become part of the msm. many of us remember the guerilla bfm daze.

Quite right, of course. The reason I started hard News (apart from my chronic need to editorialise) was that I felt people like me and my friends never got heard in the media. I was workin' for the dole.

Since then, the media have become far more accomodating of niches - a trend driven to a large extent by the internet - and I've gotten more respectable. As I observed in a Metro thinkpiece several years ago, I appear to have become part of some establishment.

But I still feel more akin to my fellow netizens than to most working journalists. The fact that I shared a table with Ana Samways, Stephen Shaw, Alastair Thompson, Selwyn Manning, Lyndon Hood, Kevin List, etc is what made for a very different awards experience. I'm culturally internet, I think.

There is guerilla video footage of Paul Reynolds' speech in the Scoop Awards Coverage. Scroll down, if you see a fetching photo of my jugular, you've gone too far.

And congratulations of course, well deserved.

I recall there's a quote somewhere of Eugene Ionesco, sounding pained about having somehow become part of the establishment. And he wrote a play about people turning into rhinoceroses, so it's not as if you'd be in bad company.